New dynamic health status index aims to improve patient safety and enhance outcomes by enabling telehealth providers to intervene earlier in patient care
VENTURA, Calif., March 31 /PRNewswire/ -- VivoMetrics, Inc., developer of LifeShirt(R), a continuous, integrated and wearable remote patient monitoring (RPM) system, announced today that they have partnered with OBS Medical, leading innovators in automated early warning technology with the Visensia(R) hospital patient safety suite, to create a new decision-assist software platform for use with VivoMetrics' next generation LifeShirt. The two companies will develop a new tool to continuously integrate wirelessly collected vital sign data from remotely monitored patients into a dynamic index of health status. Changes in this index can serve as an early alert for telehealth providers of the need to intervene in patient care, ultimately helping to improve quality of care and to reduce cost outcomes.
RPM, a rapidly growing category of healthcare, enables medical professionals and caregivers to monitor and manage patients in real-time as they go about their daily lives. Drawing on more than 10 years as a leading innovator in continuous ambulatory monitoring, VivoMetrics is developing a next-generation LifeShirt for RPM, a comfortable and patient-friendly "smart garment" that continuously collects and wirelessly transmits vital sign data to healthcare providers regardless of a patient's location or activity.
To assist healthcare providers using this data to make decisions regarding care or follow up, VivoMetrics is partnering with OBS Medical to adapt their automated hospital early warning technology for use with the next generation LifeShirt for RPM. Recognized by Frost and Sullivan as a 2008 North American Technology Innovation award winner, OBS Medical's Visensia hospital patient safety suite fuses data from multiple vital signs into a numerical index of a patient's wellness. When the index reaches or surpasses a set threshold, an alert is triggered, indicating a patient may be at greater risk of deterioration. By adapting and extending this technology to remote patient monitoring, the two companies aim to enable telehealth providers to proactively intervene in patient care to help reduce the rate of emergency room visits and hospital admissions.
"Our population is growing older and experiencing increasing rates of chronic disease, while at the same time we are faced with a growing shortage of healthcare providers," said Howard Baker, president and chief executive officer of VivoMetrics. "VivoMetrics and OBS Medical have been independently creating innovative solutions to address both the increasing demand for and rising cost of care created by these trends. It made complete sense for us to work together to help fulfill the promise of remote patient monitoring to improve quality of care and reduce costs. Our mutual goal is to provide caregivers with continuous insights into a patient's well-being, enabling them to make informed, proactive decisions leading to better health."
"We are delighted to 'join forces' with VivoMetrics on this project," said Wayne Nethercutt, chief operating officer of OBS Medical. "We've had great success with helping hospitals optimize clinical resources and improve patient safety. With this partnership, we can extend these benefits to an even broader healthcare audience to ensure patients receive the highest quality care possible with the most efficient use of healthcare resources."
About VivoMetrics
VivoMetrics, Inc., founded in 1999 and based in Ventura, Calif., specializes in continuous ambulatory monitoring through the use of its proprietary LifeShirt(R) technology, enabling healthcare professionals and researchers to obtain a complete, real-time picture of a patient's physiological status in ambulatory and home settings. A wearable, completely non-invasive "smart garment," LifeShirt(R) monitors vital life-sign functions such as heart rate, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation, body position, activity level and skin temperature which, when monitored and reviewed in relation to one another, provide the most complete, real-time picture of a patient's physiologic status available today in an ambulatory form factor. VivoMetrics has supported research and clinical trials using LifeShirt(R) at nearly 300 leading research and academic institutions across a wide range of disease states, including sleep disordered breathing, congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cystic fibrosis. For more information, visit www.lifeshirt.com.
About OBS Medical
OBS Medical is based in Carmel, Indiana and provides innovative clinical algorithms for safer hospitals, safer patients and safer drugs. Based on intelligent algorithms such as neural networks, data fusion and ECG waveform recognition, OBS Medical technologies cover a range of medical applications including automated early crisis warning (Visensia(R)), automated assessment of ECG waveforms including QT interval measurement and morphology tracking (BioQT(TM)), and EEG analysis for brain-state assessment. OBS Medical is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Oxford BioSignals Ltd. based in Oxford, UK, which was originally spun out from Oxford University. To learn more, visit www.obsmedical.com.
Forward-looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including but not limited to, those that refer to the company's future development plans. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated due to numerous business, market and financial risk factors. Products referenced in this release as in development are not currently available for sale nor have they been submitted to the FDA for review and market clearance. The forward-looking statements in this press release represent our current views as of today and we disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the future.
CONTACT: Paula Moggio of Porter Novelli Life Sciences, +1-310-444-7034,
pmoggio@porternovelli.com, for VivoMetrics, Inc.
Web site: http://www.lifeshirt.com/
